Definition of REAL learning

"Learning starts with a problem and continues with the application of increasingly complex ideas and increasingly sophisticated skills to increasingly complicated problems." - Thomas Ehrlich

Amen.

Zombies: a week of unorthodox learning with the undead

For our Creativity Week group, we took a suggestion from the students. They wanted to do live action roll playing, they wanted to perform, they wanted to camp, and they wanted to cook. Plus, they wanted to somehow involve a zombie apocalypse. So my ever-wonderful co-teachers and I decided to roll all of this into one fabulous project and the ZAG (Zombie Apocalypse Group) was born. 

The Survivalists (attempt to) build a tent

We divided our larger group into five teams (three lead by teachers and two lead by Seniors), each of which focused on a different task:

1. Survivalists (working to prepare any survivors for life in the wild): outdoor survival skills

2. Scouts (preparing us to act as zombies): learning the Thriller dance and designing make-up

3. Sympathizers (trying to understand the zombies' point of view): making a documentary about the lives of zombies

A Scientist making grains

4. Scientists (creating the anti-zombie serum with grains): cooking up delicious various grain combinations in the forms of cookies, tortillas, pancakes, rice, etc (with lots of supervision but no instruction)

5. Specialists (providing in-depth knowledge about zombie history, behavior, etc): creating a wikipedia-esque data base of zombie facts

We also just did some stuff that is plain ole fun. 

We went to see "Warm Bodies" in theaters. (I was very grateful for the director's humanizing stance of zombies).

Jose showing off our make-up...
and his best zombie face

Furthermore, a Zombie Apocalypse would not be complete without a dangerous exchange between the undead and the living, so of course we had situations in which students were being zombified. These battles were overwhelmingly exciting but also had strict rules. You can access our full rules of engagement here but basically, zombies could be cured either via a sock ball to the chest or by eating grains. In case you weren't aware, zombies aren't actually out in search of brains but GRAINS...it's all  big misunderstanding.  The battles were pretty much dodgeball games with lots of groaning. The kids loved them and so we carefully coordinated the attacks at random times across the week, infecting different teams which would then attack other teams, whereupon the battles would ensue.

We created (very sticky) zombie make-up out of corn syrup, chocolate syrup and food coloring.

Applying make-up

Learning Michael Jackson's moves

Our final coup de grace was a glorious guerrilla performance of Michael Jackson's Thriller. The entire group (that's 27 kids and three teachers) learned the entire Thriller dance in less than three days and then rocked it in front of the entire school. The Scouts learned it themselves first and then taught it to the rest of the students in smaller groups.

Practicing Thriller 

In the end, I think the students came away with an educational yet non-traditional learning experience. 

He's been zombified!

Some had learned how to direct and edit videos, while others learned that you can't make bread rise without baking soda or powder. Some learned how to start a fire, while others learned how to teach dance. Regardless of their team, the students had to work despite limited resources and repeated failures. Most importantly, they were all quite proud of themselves and we all had a blast! (Although let me tell you, us teachers were exhausted!)

Creativity Week

My school is a pretty unique place. One of my favorite parts about my job (other than my relationships with my students, which is far and away my favorite part) is that I get to coordinate Creativity Week. This means that I poll students and staff to find out what sorts of wacky projects they would like to work on and then facilitate a week of work and presentations where they just go to town on the project of their liking. 

This year some of the projects included:

-building a Rube Goldberg machine

-playing with Raspberry Pi computers

-Junk Art (making art from found objects like magazines, bottle caps, egg cartons, etc)

-Slam Poetry

-Film making

-KPOP

-Zombie Apocalypse!

Here's a video about a few of the different groups, made by the Creative Media group.

I really loved seeing the students outside of the traditional educational setting. If only we had Creativity Week every week!

What if social media is bad for both introverts AND extroverts?

Is social media anti-introvert?
 [Please note that I said introverts and not shy people.]
My dear friend, who is quite the introvert, never uses his social media. He uses the internet all the time, but it is usually to "consume" and not "contribute" and the sources are usually information-related not people-focused. Social mediums, like Facebook and Twitter, just aren't interesting for him. This makes sense: people wear him out, so wouldn't people on the internet wear him out, too?

Then I started wondering if social media is rough for extroverts too.
Extroverts (myself included) find nourishment from other people, so social media should be ideal for us. But often times, I'll find myself going to Facebook looking for company, only to get off half an hour later feeling jealous and even more lonely. Although I "interacted" with several people, I didn't have the pleasure of their company and human energy, which is what revives me.

Jake Reilly's "Amish Project" inspired these questions:

Student skits

My Spanish students wrote skits to use their phone vocabulary in a more authentic setting. These delightful videos are what came of what was just going to be a normal homework assignment. I love being in a setting where we can go with the flow and change our class plans in order to meet the students' interests.

Thomas really likes anime and he's always drawing cartoons for class, so his skit involved some anime characters.

Miya loves Maroon 5, so she focused her skit on Adam Levine. 

I was so happy with Rebekah's skit, especially given how quiet she is in class!

Guess they really wanted to go to WalMart. 

Is education a part of the service industry?

Recently, I have been thinking about how educators need to carefully consider and construct their material in ways that is palatable to their "clients" and how these clients are actually two different target audiences: students and parents. In my lesson planning, not only do I need to make sure that my students will be engaged and actively learning, but I have to make sure that the parents will find the content and methods acceptable for their child. 

This led me to ask if education falls under the category of "service industry," where the customer is always right. Wikipedia says, 

"The service sector consists of the "soft" parts of the economy, i.e. activities where people offer their knowledge and time to improve productivity, performance, potential, and sustainability. The basic characteristic of this sector is the production of services instead of end products. Services (also known as "intangible goods") include attention, advice, access, experience, and discussion. ... Service providers face obstacles selling services that goods-sellers rarely face. Services are not tangible, making it difficult for potential customers to understand what they will receive and what value it will hold for them."

Although you might disagree with me when I say that education is not about the end product, I think there is little question that education does indeed focus on "attention, advice, access, experience, and discussion." That, in fact, is a fantastic summary of what I would like to provide to my students. 

However, if education does fall into the tertiary sector of the economy, it means that our goal as educators is to please those we serve, exactly because it is "difficult for ... customers to understand what they will receive and what value it will hold for them."

So, are educators to cater to what our clients want? If so, we must ask if we are to prioritize the wants and needs of our students or those of the parents. 

Or are educators bound by some different code and driven to present material that is judged by a different standard, and therefore less immediately pleasing to our "customers"? I fear that consumer-driven education would perpetuate homeostasis, where students only learned what they found enjoyable and what was directly related to their parents’ experiences. I’ve found that my most rapid personal growth has happened when I was in situations far removed from the world of my childhood, the exact world that my parents (ever so lovingly) crafted.

I must admit that part of this train of thought stems from some parents questioning what I am teaching their children. To a certain extent, I understand their point of view: they know their child better than I do; they have more invested in their child than I do; they will live with their child far longer than I will. Ultimately, I do not get to make the over-arching decisions regarding the life of the young person. But I still wonder: am I working for knowledge, or for parents?

El Gran Gatsby: a trailer

My wonderful Independent Spanish Study student made this trailer for The Great Gatsby...but in Spanish. She did all of the translations herself. There was no assignment; she just decided that she wanted to do it and she up and did it!

Nice work, Alex!